The state’s contract with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, or AFSCME, expired June 30, 2015, but negotiations for a new contract
began months before.
Illinois state workers are already the highest-paid state workers in the nation
when adjusted for cost of living. But AFSCME wants more – including automatic
four-year raises that would hike payroll 21 percent by 2019, overtime pay after
just 37.5 hours a week and even more expensive luxury insurance while employees
pay little for premiums.
Throughout the negotiations, AFSCME has used stall tactics to burden the process
and made it harder for the state to reach an agreement with the
government-worker union.
And now, data from the Illinois State Board of Elections reveal a possible
strategy behind the union’s stall tactics: As of late September, AFSCME had
contributed over $1.4 million to Illinois-based political campaigns in 2016
alone.
If AFSCME can help union-friendly lawmakers achieve a veto-proof majority in the
General Assembly, it can then push through legislation to undermine the labor
negotiations process laid out in state law.
In 2015 and 2016, AFSCME backed two bills that would have undermined state labor
laws to taxpayers’ detriment. Senate Bill 1229 and House Bill 580 would have
stripped the state of its bargaining power by allowing a panel of unelected
arbitrators to step in and draft a binding contract between the state and
AFSCME. With research demonstrating that arbitrators usually side with unions,
the legislation would clearly benefit the union at the expense of state
taxpayers, who would have to foot the bill for the expensive contract
arbitration would have handed AFSCME. And both bills were carefully crafted to
hamstring only Gov. Bruce Rauner’s negotiating team: They both would have
expired at the end of Rauner’s term.
In short, AFSCME wanted to remove Rauner from negotiations in order to obtain a
beneficial (and costly) contract. Rauner ultimately vetoed both bills, and,
although the Democrats have supermajorities in both chambers of the General
Assembly, lawmakers were unable to muster the votes to override those vetoes.
If AFSCME’s 2016 political contributions are any indication, AFSCME is working
to create a veto-proof majority the next time around.
And AFSCME’s conduct during negotiations and the subsequent impasse proceedings
demonstrate that it has been playing a stalling game in order to get to the
point where a potential legislative victory becomes a reality.
First, AFSCME’s actions during negotiations did not demonstrate a true desire to
reach an agreement with the state. The parties engaged in 24 bargaining sessions
over 67 days – the longest negotiations in the history of bargaining between
AFSCME and the state.
[to top of second column] |
An administrative law judge, or ALJ, recently recommended that
the state’s labor board determine that the parties are at partial
impasse. In that recommendation, the ALJ repeatedly noted her
conclusion that the state had come to the negotiating table in good
faith to reach an agreement. On the other hand, the ALJ stated that
the union’s conduct during negotiations “calls into question its
commitment to reaching an agreement through bargaining.” The ALJ
noted in particular that AFSCME’s effort to push through SB 1229 and
HB 580 seemed “inconsistent with a mindset of good faith
bargaining.”
Second, AFSCME’s conduct during the impasse proceedings
demonstrated its clear intent to stall a final determination of
whether the parties are at impasse. The state encouraged the ALJ to
adopt a schedule to help speed things along; AFSCME objected. The
state requested the parties pre-file their evidence, to speed the
process; AFSCME objected. The state began and wrapped its case in
five days; AFSCME took more than three times that long.
The ALJ summed up the differences in the parties’ approaches:
The parties proceeded very differently with respect to putting on
evidence about these negotiations. The State presented evidence in
an overview fashion, focusing on the packages on which the parties
had not reached agreement as of January 8, 2016…. The Union
proceeded to elicit evidence in a day-by-day, proposal-by-proposal,
chronological fashion.
With more than 300 proposals and 67 days of negotiations, AFSCME was
clearly not trying to move the impasse proceedings along.
The dragged-out proceedings caused the state to request the parties
bypass the ALJ’s recommendation and go straight to the labor board
for its final determination. And again, AFSCME objected.
Now with more than $1.4 million invested in political campaigns –
and over a month to go before the election – AFSCME’s ultimate goal
is coming into view.
If AFSCME can delay the negotiations and impasse proceedings past
the election, a new legislature may be able to push through another
version of SB 1229 or HB 580 before an impasse determination is
issued. That would force the state into arbitration and place
Illinois’ tax dollars in the hands of an unaccountable third party
with a likely union bent.
From stall tactics to apparent bad faith in negotiations, AFSCME’s
actions demonstrate it is not interested in reaching an agreement.
As such, AFSCME is not only failing the taxpayers who must pay for
AFSCME’s contract, but also state workers. While AFSCME plays
political games, its own members are left without the stability of a
contract.
Click here to respond to the editor about this article
|
